The rear-guard was annihilated and the Persians rolled on to occupy central Greece. Arrowheads of Anatolian design have been found in large numbers on the hill by modern archaeologists. The vicious hand-to-hand fighting had broken their spears and swords, but they fought on with daggers, hands and teeth until the Persians tired of unnecessary losses and shot them down with arrow volleys. But then the Immortals arrived, and the Greeks had to retreat to a low hill.
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The rear-guard held their own, despite losing their commander Leonidas amidst brutal, drawn-out fighting. Read more: 9 of the most overrated battles in history (and one underrated one).To buy time for the retreating troops, Leonidas needed a rear-guard to hold back the Persians – and die, if necessary. The Persians (unlike the Greeks) had cavalry, which could overtake and destroy the retreating forces. Although neither motive can be dismissed, it’s likely that the main reason was strategic. The historian Herodotus, keen to lionise Leonidas, tells us that the leader sent the allies away to spare their lives and win immortal glory. The rest of the Greek force chose to leave. Leonidas needed a rear-guard to hold back the Persians – and die, if necessary.
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Alerted to the path by a local Greek, at dusk on the second day Xerxes sent his Immortals to prepare to outflank the Greeks on the morning of day three. But there were paths through the hills, and one in particular led along the mountain overlooking the pass to a point behind the Greek lines. All came back mauled – even his elite corps of 10,000 ‘Immortals’. Worse still, the sheer numbers of the Persian force counted against them, since in this confined space they were at constant risk of being crushed by their own side.įor two days, Xerxes threw division after division into the pass. Xerxes’s force instead had to resort to the brutal hacking clash of infantry lines at close quarters: the Greek way of fighting. And they could not use the tactics that had made them masters of the world from the Aegean to the Indus: breaking the enemy with volley after volley of arrows from a distance, before moving in to annihilate them. But the tight space meant that the Persians could not use their vast numbers to crush them.
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He needed to feed and water not just the warriors but a host of camp followers, cavalry mounts and baggage animals – plus an immense and lavish royal retinue.
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Xerxes knew that if he delayed, he faced supply problems. Even 50,000 would have been huge by ancient standards.
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His army was vast: ancient sources put its numbers in the millions, although modern historians incline to about 200,000. It was late summer, and he needed to wrap up the whole invasion as far as possible before winter. To advance south, Xerxes had to take the pass – and time was not on his side. But it was stuck like a cork in a bottle. The opposing Greek force was small, not much more than 7,000, with 300 Spartans at its core. (Photo by The Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Images) A 19th-century illustration showing Thermopylae, a narrow coastal passage famous for the battle between the Greek Spartans and invading Persian forces in 480 BC.